British Eagle route map

[The late XV105]

Looking through old photograph albums with my parents last weekend, tucked in to one of them was a British Eagle route map. It is from the flight to Singapore where Dad was posted in 1967.

Outbound on a Bristol Britannia in 27 hours via Istanbul and Bombay.
Return three years later on my namesake (RAF VC10) in 17 hours via Gan.
These days it is 13 hours direct on an SQ 388 and without needing to detour round Eastern Bloc territories when I take the trip; noting the dogleg on the British Eagle flight, the second image below was taken on new year's day this year from Krnov, Czech Republic, of the SQ service from Singapore to Heathrow! (The original image has ample resolution to identify the operator and Google found the rest)

http://i1087.photobucket.com/albums/j466/HughGengine/British%20Eagle/BritishEagle.jpg

http://i1087.photobucket.com/albums/j466/HughGengine/British%20Eagle/IMG_120101114300.jpg

[Brian 48nav]

Great map; looks like a map of lots of the routes I flew in the Herc!

[D120A]

I like the small hand-written annotation on the map: "Beautiful view of the desert and mountains in this region". Someone was awake and navigating in their head!

And I suspect the view was more beautiful through a Britannia window at 22,000 feet than it ever could be through the tubular arrow-slit of an A380 window (been there, seen it) at FL350.